Review Fix Exclusive: Interview With Singer Christina Marie

Her dream was to create music. She spent hours on planes and in the studio as she perfected her mash between electronic, rock, and gothic, with somewhat of a bluesy undertone. It somehow came together to create a unique style.

Even with her dark hair, porcelain skin and deep penetrative eyes, her dream almost died before it really began to live.

Christina Marie Cliggott, lead singer of the band Christina Marie Magenta, who prefers to go simply by Christina Marie, spent two years hard at work on her first album with a friend who owned a basement studio. Although good friends, the two proved not to be good music partners. Their ideas about music conflicted with each other and after more than two years, the album still hadn’t been completed.

After two years of struggle, hard work and commitment, her dream was replaced by reality and washed away within moments.

“He kept on trying to make it perfect,” she explained. “The way I see it is that music is art and art is not perfect. And if it’s perfect it’s not art its math. I was trying to create art not math,” she said.

Christina Marie put her all into her art. However, as she surfed toward success all her hard work was washed away when a flood occurred; all the files were lost.

“Everything got lost, all of it,” she said, “and at that point I had spent two years and I had nothing to show for it except maybe a few MP3s or something. It was really frustrating so I said, ‘Screw it I’m done with this.’”

After the frustration caused by that ordeal, Christina Marie washed her hands with music; she walked away. However, after her three year-old son, Wyatt, began to show interest in music, she couldn’t walk away anymore.

She saw her son dance around to the radio tunes. Watched as he banged away on his toy drum set and stressed the keys on his little piano. Christina Marie came to a realization about his future; should he ever choose to pursue music.

“It occurred to me he’s going to run into the same problems I did where it just became really, really difficult. No matter how much you start working it feels like something gets in your way and stops you just constantly. All I could see is him hitting that and thinking, ‘Oh that’s why mom stopped. That makes sense, it’s difficult.’ Then he’ll be like ‘Oh I guess it’s okay if I stop too,’ and I didn’t like that. I didn’t want to be that type of role model,” she explained.

With new-found inspiration, Christina Marie dived back into the music scene and has begun to bring new dark and mysterious sounds to the world of music.

Ever since she was a young girl, she was interested in music. When she was ten years old she really started to get involved musically. However, though she was always interested in music, she did not get heavily involved and serious with her music until recently.

“I’ve always been interested in music,” she said, “I started really studying it when I was around ten to twelve. I started writing music when I was in high school. I didn’t really get too heavy into until more recently I guess.”

Christina Marie did not start off in the music business. She went to college to study business and business law and stumbled into a career as a model. She had a successful model career that lasted for about ten years.

In preparation for her photo shoots, Christina Marie’s weeks were spent with a mass of emails and phone calls. Travel plans were constantly being made and sometimes she even had to shop for a shoot.

“If I had several shoots a week, it’d get really hectic,” she said. “I once had a shoot nineteen days in a row.”

Despite the success of her career, it started to become strenuous.

“It got really busy and it offered a lot of travel,” she said. “I’d be on twelve different flights a month. I concentrated on [modeling] for several years but it gets tiring. It becomes a job after awhile.”

Christina Marie found herself inching her way back into the arms of music.

“I really enjoy the music so I’d rather do that more,” she said.

Currently, she is at work on her third album and has finally started to get into a groove with her musical career. She has a solid team backing her and a drive to keep on going.

She is unlike many artists simply in the way that she started and the assents that she brings to her music. She is her own songwriter and producer for her band. She is multidimensional with more than vocals or the use of an instrument under her belt.

“I don’t work the same way a lot of people do,” she said. “I’m looking at [music] from a completely different perspective than a lot of musicians. Most musicians start of as musicians in the basement with a guitar or something you know? I’m more of a computer person. I write everything on the computer and also I’m more into business. I’m more interested in the business end of it so a lot of different things get accomplished than what would happen if I were concentrating on just an instrument like a lot of musicians do.”

A sultry voice, smooth and silky like the touch of satin to skin, paired with the skilled sound of mixed instruments blended together to create a dark and intoxicated sound, music has a fresh companion in Christina Marie.

Despite her dark, rock star, party girl image from her music and photos, Christina Marie is more of a fun, friendly librarian inside. Relatable and laid back, with Gold star quirk to her personality, she aims to make music that people can relate to.

“I don’t go to open mics, I don’t do concerts, and simply for no other reason than I just don’t enjoy those things. I don’t like being in crowded areas. I don’t want a lot of people smoking and drinking and being on top of me. It gets annoying after awhile. I’m more of a quiet person strangely enough,” she said. “I want people to enjoy my songs. I want them to have meaning to somebody and it doesn’t necessarily have to be the same meaning as it has to me, just something that can improve on their life, hopefully.”

Through all the struggles of the music business, Christina Marie continues to deal because music is what she loves to do. She does it because it’s her passion.

Unlike other artists who seek fame and sold out shows, Christina Marie isn’t interested in anything but her art. Her hope is that through her music, she can make a mark on earth; evidence of the things she did while she was here.

Son Wyatt, who is currently receiving guitar and drum lessons, may yet make his mark on earth through music as well. Only time will tell.

“I’m not trying to play somewhere specific or do anything like that,” said Christina Marie. “I just like having something that really leaves a mark. I want to be able to show something to people. Something that when I’m dead and gone, people will be like, ‘Hey, this is something that was created a hundred years ago pretty cool.’ Hopefully someone will think that. They can be like, ‘Your Great-Great Grandmother made this.’ The proof that I was here.”